Hey everyone, as we continue to work on Alpha 23 (AI improvements, Appeal, Crafting Upgrades) we also continue to work on long term, high impact projects. We’re very excited to share some of Engineer Angelo and Designer Richard’s work with on on this topic.

You’ve made me a very happy man!!! This MP playtest was pretty much how I described it, with multiple people in one synchronous session. I know this won’t come out soon but I will most definitely be watching the stream on Thursday for details!

I thought this would be pushed back another year at least… not the final release of multiplayer, but just building the starting components. That’s how the roadmap made it sound, and there was no space on the roadmap for MP. I’m so glad that you’re starting to put together ideas for it!!!

I must say, that for a rough prototype, it looks perfect. It included everything multiplayer could wish for:

Being able to see other people their blueprints

Ability to fight against a common enemy (although that enemy apparently was just focussed on player 1)

Ability to “borrow” some much-needed materials, workbenches and food items, really increasing the amount of coop play

Both the ability to create separate towns with own sets of hearthlings, and place the sets together for one larger town with multiple owners

And the best feature that really surprised me to be visible in a prototype: the other players their mouses and gathering symbols, all nicely color-coded, to clearly indicate who is doing what, and who is stealing all the trees.

I like it for all the same reasons @tim1 mentioned. This is exactly how I think a multiplayer should look.

I dislike it because (YES I KNOW IT’S STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS) it feels limiting. It’s limiting because of the size of the map, and how it forces the towns on top of each other. Using Minecraft multiplayer as an example, most people either go off into their own area and build, or join someone else’s area to help them build. In the end, the areas get connected and kinda tell a story of that world (give or take). By forcing multiple people on the same size map as single player, I’d have to trust everyone I’m with. Otherwise, an area, even the center of my town, could end up being completely different than I’d like it to be. Even in this video is an example of what I was talking about when there’s a floating path way above the one town. Personally…I’d hate that.

Now one exception I’d like to make;

tim1:

Ability to “borrow” some much-needed materials, workbenches and food items, really increasing the amount of coop play

I like this, but I think it should also be marketable. Like rather than someone I’m playing with able to just come over and take what they need, I feel it should be set that they can’t touch my stuff unless I trade it to them or sell it to them.

Yeah, although an option to allow looting another player’s stuff does seem like it could bring some interesting gameplay, if you could defend against it.

Speaking of which: minigames! If you had a flag that Hearthlings dropped when attacked, you’ve practically got the ingredients for capture the flagloot the flag and carry it to your stockpile set up already. Maybe minigames should be left to mods, but I think that’s another possibility with multiplayer, especially if the plan is still mostly avoiding PvP like what I’ve heard earlier.

In this verison of the prototype, it is totally possible to do PVP, someone just has to go to the console and type “set_player_enmity” to “hostile” or something like that. But as angry as we were about the missing workbenches and firepits, nobody actually went through with it…

I feel this should be tested. It’s been argued to and from about how PVP would reflect in this game, and until now this has been all theory. Regardless if this is done with an in-house test or a special build on steam, I think this should be first hand tested and see where it goes.

If it’s successful, even slightly, then this could become a server setting like many other games; where the host of the server can toggle PVP on or off for that session.

I enjoyed this DT very much! I’m glad to see the devs exploring, but the biggest take-a-way from the video (for me) was how much fun the devs were having. It’s delightful to see the devs are enjoying what they’re workin’ on. Totally made my day. Keep up the great work Radiant and here’s hoping the fun never stops!!

Edit: I know this is very experimental, but if you’re gonna allow players to steal from others maybe make a system where there is a chance to get busted. Make the chance higher when there are less hearthlings, decreasing as there are more. If a hearthling is caught with their hand in the cookie jar they get a time out (jail equivalent). That would mean the player is down that hearthling for a period of time, so players would have to weigh the risk vs. reward. Just tossin’ around ideas.

Awesome to see not only that the rough tech is coming together, but that even these early tests are creating so much joy and laughter among the team! I was laughing along with some of the misadventures, and that gives me a lot of optimism about the future feel of multiplayer.

It was a bit unexpected, but I’m very pleasantly surprised – and very keen to see more in stream 300!

I’m interested to know how AI would be handled - with two computers could you have twice the max hearthlings? I’m assuming it’s peer to peer so each pc would both calculate its hearthlings routines and then its info to other pcs

Yeah, exactly! It was heartening to see the team playtesting it and laughing along with the pure fun of playing together… this is what I was talking about when I mentioned multiplayer before! I know a lot of it was laughing at all of the bugs they found, but I think they sensed just how fun it was to be having a synchronous multiplayer experience.

I’m curious as to how they’ll develop it when they start to release multiplayer in an alpha. Will it be new features in both singleplayer and multiplayer? Or will singleplayer get new features while multiplayer remains at an earlier alpha for features? For example, let’s say in Alpha 26, they release an early prototype for multiplayer, for two players on the same map. Then, in Alpha 27, they add, I dunno, a new profession, let’s say. So the new profession isn’t in multiplayer (in Alpha 27) but only in singleplayer, until enough features get added to singleplayer that multiplayer also gets an update (in some future Alpha, like Alpha 29 or something). The first scenario (where both singleplayer and multiplayer are given the same new features every Alpha) would slow the process of producing Alphas because every new feature would have to be tested in both singleplayer and multiplayer.

I guess we’ll find out more on Thursday, but I’m excited to see the dev team agreeing with us on multiplayer! I’ve also hyped up some of my friends in letting them know that multiplayer is at least being discussed on the team.

I’m guessing most features will be added to both singleplayer and multiplayer at the same time. Based on their description of the engine it sort of demands that things are built with MP support and it’s usually easier and faster to build a feature in one go instead of returning later when you might not remember how it works. Also, the DT text said they started looking at MP now to be more able to design features with MP in mind, which probably mean they want feedback on features from both SP and MP before updating the design of it.
I wouldn’t worry about it slowing down the process. Sure, it’s an extra step, but if they skip MP in one alpha to get it out faster the MP will just slow down the process in a later one instead.

I know it doesn’t matter much, but as I had said before I would probably not be as active as I was, only once the MP would be thought over once more. I am so very pleased to see you guys figuring out how both options present before weren’t good enough !
You guys really deserve some props here for listening to your community and the early sneak peak is a true delight !

Might I also add the exploration implementation was splendid to see tried out as well !

I think we should be able to craft some different color clothes to relay these sets in the late game combined with your idea with a Toggle.

I would also think teaming up should be allowed politically or preset in the lobby. Thus giving you the same color or same symbol or whatever. Perhaps a system that allows us to customize our settlers flag and colored boots. As far as I know boots are not essential to gameplay yet in any way. I would suggest armbands had a certain group of people not ruined that.